Superintendent's Message

Dear Community Members,

Like many school districts around New York State, our school receives federal subsidies for our cafeteria. Because of this, we are responsible to adhere to federal rules that guide the National School Lunch Program. These rules mandate what we can serve and how much we have to charge. We currently charge the minimum allowed:

Elementary Breakfast: $1.20

MS/HS Breakfast: $1.40

Elementary Lunch: $2.20

MS/HS Lunch: $2.45

Many of our families qualify for free or reduced lunch. Last year 67% of our students received this service. Students who qualify punch their lunch number into a keypad just like those who are paying. No one can tell the difference and there isn’t a stigma attached. I encourage anyone who might qualify for the service to contact one of our offices for more information or assistance.

In compliance with federal regulations, our school has instituted a policy which allows students to charge up to 5 meals without paying. Once the limit has been reached, the student is given an option of an alternative to the offered entree. The alternative is a cheese sandwich meal including fruit and drink. Students are warned as they approach the limit and are informed in line about the alternative meal once reaching the limit. Food is never taken from a student that has already been served nor is a student placed in an embarrassing situation. Most of our charges take place at the HS level with our smallest amount of charges happening at the elementary school.

This past year the school lost $2,938.24 to unpaid lunch bills. The school is already owed $1000.00 in charges for this year. By law, the cafeteria functions financially as a separate enterprise from the school. The cafeteria is not legally allowed to lose money. The school subsidizes the lunch program for any money it is short. This results in the school paying thousands of dollars to the lunch program every year that could be used on educational items.

We understand the importance of lunch at school and will do everything we can to keep the price of meals low. It is also important to us that families that need financial support for students to eat are able to receive this service. We hope that those that are able to pay for their children’s lunches will do so.

Sincerely,

Robert StewartBrasher Falls Superintendent of Schools

District Goals

Our district goals fall into three categories:

Goal driven by the administration according to district wide needs

Goal set for increasing student achievement on state testing determined through a collaborative effort between teachers and administration.

Professional Learning Community (PLC) goal determined by the teachers, as the classroom experts, according to what they see as the needs of our students.

Goal 1 for each building revolves around creating greater rigor, relevance, and relationships for our students. Increasing rigor and relevance of learning, or what we call teaching in quad D, helps to better engage our students at a high level of learning. This prepares them for the future.

Goal 2 is directly related to improving student achievement through improving teaching and better implementing common core strategies and curriculum.

Goal 3 is directed by our classroom experts according to student’s needs. This goal may vary from building to building but directly relates to our overall vision.

Our goals have to be aligned with our vision or the ultimate reason we are here. We want our students to be successful after they leave us and have the opportunity to be anything they choose to be!

It’s important that we communicate our goals to the community so that we all understand what is trying to be accomplished. We want to create the best educational program we can in order to assure our kids are ready once they leave us. We use test scores and grades as guides along the way, but the determining factor of our success is our student’s success after leaving us.

Elementary School Goals

Goal 1: RRR- (Rigor, Relevance, Relationships) Elementary School

The Brasher Falls Central School District will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction through focus upon Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships in learning and instruction.

Strategy: To analyze and improve relationships with students and community in order to increase student achievement.

Target: To increase each student cohort’s proficiency on the NYS ELA & Math Assessments by 4%

Goal 2: Student Achievement - Elementary School

The Brasher Falls Central School District will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction, in line with the Common Core Learning Standards, to raise the quality of student achievement.

Strategy: To embed the philosophy and practices of the Common Core Learning Standards into everyday practices at BFCSD.

Target: To increase each student cohort’s proficiency on the NYS ELA & Math Assessments by 4%

Goal 3: PLC -Student Achievement - Elementary School

The Brasher Falls Central School Board of Education will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction, in line with the Common Core Learning Standards, to raise the quality of student achievement.

The Brasher Falls Central School Board of Education will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction, in line with the Common Core Learning Standards, to raise the quality of student achievement.

Strategy: To continue reaching for further ways to build personal Relationships between staff and students both in and out of the classroom.

Target: To increase student and staff relationships based on results of student surveys, given throughout the year, that focus on two main objectives: How students feel teachers care about them and How students would like to be taught?

Goal 2: Student Achievement - Middle School

The Brasher Falls Central School Board of Education will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction, in line with the Common Core Learning Standards, to raise the quality of student achievement.

Strategy: To continue the successes of our core reading and writing program, with an additional reading position, that will support student achievement.

Target: To increase each student cohort’s proficiency on the NYS ELA & Math Assessments by 4%

(Push for all Tier 2 students to be at reading grade level before they leave Middle School)

Goal 3: PLC - New York State Testing Vocabulary - Middle School

The Brasher Falls Central Middle School will promote the continued implementation of curriculum and teaching strategies that will prepare students to reach their full potential beyond high school.

Strategy 1: To continue the use of our previous years 11 top Tier 2 words Middle School Faculty feel are need to increase student success on New York State Exams, including Regents in the future.

Strategy 2: At grade levels 6-8, where certain words are at 80% mastery or better from the previous year’s cohort, teachers will begin adding subject specific words to their vocabulary instruction in addition to the original 11 words that fell below 80% the previous year. (Current year’s list will be attached).

Target: To increase each student’s APPLICATION knowledge of their Tier Two list by a minimum of 25% by years’ end.

High School Goals

Goal 1: Rigor, Relevance, Relationships - High School

The Brasher Falls Central School Board of Education will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction through focus upon Rigor, Relevance and Relationships in learning and instruction.

Strategy: To analyze and improve relationships with students and community in order to increase student achievement.

Target: Decrease the number of courses students are retaking in summer school by 5%

Goal 2:Student Achievement - High School

The Brasher Falls Central School Board of Education will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction, in line with the Common Core Learning Standards, to raise the quality of student achievement.

Strategy: To embed the philosophy and practices of the Common Core Learning Standards into everyday practices at BFCSD.

Target: Increase the number of students earning 3s, 4s, and 5s on Regents exams from 78.79% to 80%.

Goal 3: PLC - High School

The Brasher Falls Central School Board of Education will promote continual improvement of curriculum and instruction, in line with the Common Core Learning Standards, to raise the quality of student achievement.

Strategy: Implementation of focused vocabulary building strategies that will allow students to demonstrate knowledge of content through functional literacy.

Target: Increase the number of students earning 3s, 4s, and 5s on Regents exams from 78.79% to 80%.